Description: Examines the tension between traditional models of Japanese sport, developed over centuries of relative isolation, and the forces of modernization and Japanese determination to become a global power.
Review Quotes:
"Maguire (sociology of sport, Loughborough U., UK) and Nakayama (sport sociology, Shimane U., Japan) bring together ten research articles by Japanese scholars on issues of sport, culture, and Japanese society. The first group of articles discusses innovation in martial arts, the emergence and development of Japanese school sport, and the development of the Japanese baseball professional ideology. Sociological processes of social reconstruction and reproduction is the major theme of papers on sustainable sport and environmental problems, role of voluntary associations in the formation of sport spectatorship, and issues of gender and sport. The final group looks at Japanese sport in the context of modernization and globalization." --Reference & Research Book News